


Okay

by NoodleTiger



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Episode 5 Spoilers, F/F, Happy Ending, Post Game, but its okay, explores both endings, max is sad, set in both endings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-27
Updated: 2015-10-27
Packaged: 2018-04-28 11:55:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5089793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoodleTiger/pseuds/NoodleTiger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is no such thing as a right or wrong decision. All choices have consequences, but they all have positives too. It takes a while, but Max finally learns this. </p>
<p>(Set in both the endings, exploring the two worlds and how Max reacts to her choices.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Okay

**Author's Note:**

> Just a note, this story moves between timelines each divide! Anything marked 'a)' = save arcadia bay ending, and anything marked 'c)' = save Chloe ending. Enjoy!

_c)_ They make one rule at the beginning of their journey.

 Don’t stop, don’t look back.

 It takes them a full day of driving to reach the nearest town not affected by the hurricane. But even then, there are whispers everywhere, about Arcadia Bay and the storm, and they make Max feel uneasy. She sees how Chloe tenses whenever it’s mentioned. It’s like everyone’s staring at them, like they know what they have done.

 They make a checklist of things they need to do in the town, most of that being buying supplies. Thankfully, Max still has her credit card, and Chloe had some money stashed in her truck. They get what they need, and then they leave.

 They live like ghosts.

\---

_a)_  Max tries to live.

 The day after the funeral, she actually _does_ ‘Go Ape’ with Warren. She cries halfway through the film, at one of the jokes no less, but Warren only puts an arm around her and lets her sob.

 The Monday after that, Max goes into town with Kate after school. They go to a café and just chat, about anything and everything. Everything except Chloe. Max feels a little blank, but appreciates Kate’s efforts.

 Everyone’s on eggshells around her. She sees them hesitate when they talk to her, unwilling to bring up anything to do with Chloe or Nathan, and Max doesn’t blame them. It gets to a point where she just feels… numb. It’s like when she travelled back to the bathroom she only brought half of herself back, leaving the other half behind with Chloe in the storm.

Despite that, when Max’s parents call, telling her it’s fine to come home, Max turns them down. She’s still needed here. She can’t leave just yet.

\---

_c)_  They eventually decide that they should return to Seattle, where Max’s parents live. The two of them can’t last forever on the little funds they have. However despite Chloe’s prompting, Max has yet to call home to tell her parents she’s alive. It’s selfish but Max knows that the second she has to retell the weeks’ events, it will only make her crimes all the more real.

 When Max finally does ring up, the shouting from down the phone line fills the car. Max takes it all silently, waiting for the storm to blow over. How painful it was is hear them, how Max misses them.

 It’s a little over an hour later when Max hangs up, her eyes red and breath shaky. Chloe says nothing, but reaches over to grip Max’s hand tight, not letting go until the sun sets.

 Max doesn’t protest, welcoming the support with open arms.

\---

_a)_  No one argues when the photography course is shut down.

 With a murderous psychopath being the last person in the position, it’s understandable why no one else stepped up to take over the class.

 Sure, Max isn’t entirely too happy, and she hears Victoria complaining about it nonstop, but she can still keep her photography up in her own time. This is just another bump in the road, Max reminds herself. It’s not the worst thing to happen by far. She’s been through worse. _Much_ worse.

 Her photography portfolio slowly grows. It becomes a habit to take pictures of blue things. Blue birds, blue books, blue hair… It’s like collecting little pieces of what she left behind. Kate catches sight of her work one day and is breath taken. She tells Max they’re beautiful, and Max can’t help but feel bittersweet. They’re only substitutes.

\---

_c)_  The nightmares start as soon as they set foot outside Arcadia Bay. Max often finds herself jolting awake, drenched in sweat, the voices of lost friends swirling through her mind. They always say the same things. _You killed us, Max. How could you, Max? Was it worth it, Max?_

 Chloe’s no better, the guilt weighing her down like a brick. Max tries to remind her that it’s not her fault, it was her own decision to make, but Chloe just gives her a knowing look and drops the subject.

 There are details neither of them want to go into, and Max isn’t sure that they ever will. But when the nightmares do hit, they always have the other to turn to. In Chloe’s arms, Max has purpose, and she feels safe.

\---

_a)_  Max sees Chloe everywhere. Not literally, but in the essence of things. She can’t walk down the road without thinking how Chloe would have loved to have done this, or bought that, or seen this, or listened to that.

 She visits her grave a lot, telling her these things, trying to make up for lost time, and time they will never have. The guilt practically destroys her.

 Max knows she ought to try and move on. But she’s tried and she _can’t._ With Chloe’s last words haunting her, how could she?

 On the days where it all gets too much, Max goes and visits Joyce of all people, to remind herself why she made this decision in the first place. Her waffles are still the best thing Max has ever eaten.

\---

_c)_  A week or so passes without incident. That is until they stop at a gas station to refuel and Chloe’s phone starts _ringing._ It hasn’t rung, not once, since the storm and how could it? The only people who know the number are ghosts.

 And the question of ‘who?’ soon becomes too much, and Chloe’s out of the door in seconds, Max having to awkwardly finishing up paying before running after her.

 She finds Chloe leant up against a wall, sobbing but with the biggest smile she’s had on her face in weeks. Max slides next to her, wrapping an arm around her girlfriend’s waist, and pulls her close as she finishes up the call. Even then, it’s a good 20 minutes until Chloe is even able to speak again, her throat sore and eyes swollen.

 Eventually, Chloe pulls Max back, finally looking _hopeful_ , and tells her that Joyce is _alive._ That Joyce and David and Warren and Frank and, heck, even _Pompidou_ are _alive._

 Then it’s Max’s turn to cry.

\---

_a)_  Max, somehow, works up the courage to visit Nathan. He’s at a mental institution, rather than a prison and Max can’t help but be glad about it. He didn’t deserve anything that Mr Jefferson had thrown at him or tortured him with. They were only kids. They still are kids.

 When she sees him again, he looks good. Sure, Nathan stares at her with an undying sense of pity and guilt, but now he has a sort of tranquillity about him that he never had a Blackwell.

 They talk small at first (how she’s doing, how he’s doing) but eventually delve into darker topics. Max admits to Nathan that she can never truly forgive him, but that she’s happy that he’s alive and doing better, the voice message he left her from the doomed timeline echoing in her mind.

 Nathan tells her how sorry he is, accepts what little forgiveness he’s been offered with teary eyes, and declares that he’ll spend the rest of his life making up for his mistakes. All of them.

 Together, they curse Mark Jefferson to hell and back, and Max finally lets her anger go.

\---

_c)_  Most of the time, they sleep in Chloe’s truck. They don’t have enough money to go to a motel every night, and neither are sure they want to. The vehicle has become a comfort to them both, always there, always ready to shelter and protect them.  

 But they’re not far from Max’s parents’ house now, only one more day’s drive away. This will be their last camp out for a while. So that night, they lay on the bonnet and gaze at the night sky, the stars shining down brightly at them.

 Or at least Chloe does. Max is watching her instead, watching the night twinkling in her eyes and her hair blowing in the wind. She has a grin on her lips and the corners of her eyes crinkle when Max makes her laugh. The moonlight makes Chloe glow, and in that moment, it hits Max all at once.

 Chloe is _alive._ She had been a dead girl in a dying town but now she’s _here_ and the most alive Max has ever seen her.

  _Max_ is the reason she’s alive.

 Max not only cries that night but kisses Chloe ten times over.

\---

_a)_  The news comes as a shock to her system. Somehow, Max had actually _won_ a photography competition. It isn’t the ‘Everyday Heroes’ contest, but it’s regionally renowned and she had _won_. Her photos are going to be in an _art gallery._ And they’re her _blue ones._

 To say she was at a loss for words was an understatement.

 Her parents had called and texted countless times, saying how proud they were of her, and a few of the teachers congratulated her too. Even _Victoria_ had stopped Max in the corridor to say that she liked the photos. _That_ had made Max’s day.

 Currently, she’s sitting in the Two Whales Diner, having a celebratory dinner with Kate and Warren. It’s nice hanging out with them both, and with them Max laughs that night more than she has in weeks. It’s then and there that she decides to move on, or to really try to this time.

 She’s the reason Kate and Warren are here right now, two people she’s very quickly learning to love. Chloe may not be here, but that doesn’t mean that the worlds not moving on without her. By trying to stay with her, it means it’s moving without Max too. If there’s one thing Chloe would have wanted her to do, it would have been to live in the world that she saved, with the people she saved.

 Joyce watches them that night with a sad yet knowing smile.

\---

_c)_  Going back to her old house in Seattle is weird. Going back to Seattle in general is weird.

  Her parents are more than happy to have Chloe living with them, and even happier to know that Joyce is still alive too. Chloe had yet to reunite properly with her mother but the plans were becoming more concrete by the minute. They had all the time in the world now.

 Max tries to find a good photography course at one of the local high schools but none of them compare to what she had. She doesn’t complain, as at this point she could easily get into a photography degree course, having built her portfolio up while travelling. Sometimes, Max will find Chloe just perusing her albums, carefully running her fingers over the images, tracing their outline. She wonders just how many of them she’s inspired, and Max will tell her that they’re all for her.

 They go to high school together, and make up for the five years they lost. Acadia Bay still ways over them, it always will, but with each survivor that comes forwards, it gets easier.

 The deciding matter in the moral situation is always Chloe. Max _saved her._ They’re partners in crime and partners in time and no one can ever know how much Max loves her, and how much she sacrificed for her.

 Everything Max ever did was for her, and she would do it again in a heartbeat.  Here, they’ll move on together.

\---

_a)_  Months go by since that week, the week of the storm, the week which she had spent with Chloe and had fallen in love with her all over again.

 Everyday things get easier. Her heart still aches every time she sees a butterfly or a blue hair, but it’s manageable. She doesn’t stop taking the blue photos, but why would she? Acadia Bay should know who truly saved them.

 Christmas begins to approach, and with it all the chaos and festivities too. She goes Christmas shopping with Kate, and they spend hours perusing over all the seasonal goods. She watches hours’ worth of Christmas films with Warren, and they sit there nit-picking over every tiny detail till they’re laughing so hard their sides hurt. She even develops an odd habit of going to galleries with Victoria, to gain inspiration for their own photos.

 On the last day of term, Max goes to a Christmas party with everyone from Blackwell that she knows. It’s surprisingly tame, everyone wearing ridiculous Christmas jumpers and drinking hot chocolate and eggnog. It makes Max feel warm inside, and she tries to not let anyone see when she tears up.

 After the party, she visits Chloe’s grave one last time before going home for the holiday. She whispers her love and recounts her countless stories but, for once, leaves with dry eyes and a smile on her face.

 Chloe may not be with her now, but that’s okay. Max knows it’s not the end of the world now. She walks away from the graveyard happy, knowing that she’s coming back but ready to move on.

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, where do I start.   
>  I guess this is my tribute to such a fantastic game. Little did I know how much this game would mean to me. This is my way of saying thank you to the creators for such a great ride.   
>  Hope you enjoy my fic, and please leave a comment or a kudos if you enjoyed it!


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